gooddelta

1. KAJ - Bara Bada Bastu 2. Remember Monday - What The Hell Just Happened? 3. PUNCHBAG - f*** It 4. JADE - FUFN (f*** You For Now) 5. Chappell Roan - The Giver 6. Sumner - Stranded 7. Sugababes - Jungle 8. KT Tunstall - Clueless 9. Voe - Don't Talk To Me 10. Zoë Më - Voyage 11. Abor & Tynna - Baller 12. PUNCHBAG - I'm Not Your Punchbag 13. Lady Gaga - Abracadabra 14. Lady Gaga - Garden Of Eden 15. Go-Jo - Milkshake Man 16. N-Trance - The Mind Of The Machine 17. Mae Muller - Breakaway 18. Miriana Conte - Kant 19. Sabrina Carpenter - Bad for Business 20. Ariana Grande - twilight zone

Great list, thanks for compiling. Always crazy to me that Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood didn't chart here at all despite several attempts to push it, but for it to go double platinum - wow! Her only ever appearance in the UK top 40 was as part of the Just Stand Up ensemble single in 2008, and I don't think the artists were given individual credits for that here.

Gosh that TV chart is bizarre since the majority of the music video channels died. I'm guessing it's the channel That's TV driving most of those ancient entries.

Hopefully Ed will stabilise over the week, it's obviously not good and he'll likely be in panic mode but seems worse for Miley for me, coming off the biggest hit of the whole year with the lead single from her last album only two years ago. The majority of new singles really just struggle to stick around these days it seems after day one (although some do rebound). People seem to be getting stuck in the quagmire of their old favourites even more than ever and won't easily let anything new in.

Call me mad but Eurovision could potentially cause this to happen in the future? Loreen got very close to No.1 just two years ago with Tattoo after she won, granted it was her second hit but most Eurovision acts are having their first hit. Say an extremely popular Eurovision entry coincides with a low sales week at some point, it hardly seems out of the realms of possibility that it could go to No.1. It was only Harry’s label dropping those CDs that blocked Sam Ryder having his first ever top 75 week at No.1. I think it will happen again either from a TV or film sync that blows up suddenly, a song that has been circulating as a viral clip on TikTok that is finally released, some sort of one-off global event happening that causes it like the Captain Tom thing. There are a multitude of ways imo. I agree with Dircadirca - all of those pop act No.1 debuts were driven by the fact that songs were simply unavailable and the hype was built up to a point that demand exploded. Many of those wouldn’t have even got there at all without that strategy, especially the likes of Mama Do and All Time Low. That is a strategy that won’t ever easily be replicated in the instant gratification age but I’m sure the labels are still working out ways to game the charts and drive buzz. Pre-release clips of something that goes viral and explodes immediately upon release (on a low sales week preferably) is the most likely way I see this happening any time soon.

The Sleep Token song is a very interesting track, nice to see it doing well! I'm intrigued that they don't box themselves into one genre, the sound of this new song caught me off guard based on the previous single, the first half of it gave me Bastille vibes which I didn't expect at all. I enjoy the way it changes up too. Ed evidently isn't the day one draw he used to be with new material, but there have been various warning signs stretching back for the last few years that this was the case. But he always turns very commercial sounding stuff into big hits eventually, so I wouldn't write him off too soon. Miley's I'd expect to see grow from that debut as more people hear it, even if it drops back initially.

We're definitely in the era of the slow burner, even moreso than four years ago when Bad Habits debuted AND Ed was still not far out of his imperial phase. It makes no sense to judge anything based on the first day anymore, even for superstars. Underperforming first day/week was bandied about here for Die With A Smile, and look how big that ended up being. No.1 debuts are getting more and more rare and the public are sometimes taking ages to get into things, even from bigger artists. Especially when the incumbent No.1 is one of the strongest we've had for the best part of a year in sales terms, it won't be easily overcome by a new release unless it's something like a new Taylor Swift/Harry Styles lead single. The market is continuing to grow, but the biggest songs are quite a bit smaller compared to the overall market than in the past, people are listening to a far wider spread of music (much of it old catalogue stuff) and are not congregating around the same few songs as much anymore, outside Christmas, anyway. So it doesn't surprise me that it's getting harder to break through the existing noise on day one.

Going for PCD again.

Madonna again for me.

Read My Mind, not a Killers fave for me personally.

Crazy sales for Elton indeed, I remember the news reports from the time of people bundling loads of copies each to buy in their arms. What they were planning to do with 40 copies exactly, I'm not quite sure, but some people would do anything to one-up others in marking Diana's legacy it seemed. It kept some good stuff off No.1 too, most notably Sunchyme, one of the best dance records ever <3 What an inspired use of a sample. Interesting mini-Latin craze going on, it's always fun to remember that Ricky Martin had this big hit a couple of years before he became a proper star. Bellini was basically one of the many aliases of the guy who was also behind Fragma (and Paffendorf). Loved seeing Some Kind Of Bliss by Kylie in the first episode tonight, one of my absolute favourite singles by her. Criminally underrated, can't believe it missed the top 20! Nice to see The Sundays too, I always wonder what happened to them after 1997, such a lovely band. And that Robbie song was awful imo, his last single before he became a superstar. Imagine having Angels and Let Me Entertain You on your album and releasing South Of The Border first!

Any idea on this one please mods? Not like it's a major issue, but just curious, and presuming it's not just me seeing it?

Abracadabra (Favourite) What The Hell Just Happened FUFN Busy Woman Twilight Zone

BJSC 1 - Delta Goodrem - Believe Again (Live at Australian Idol) - 17th BJSC 3 - Andreas Johnson - Glorious - 8th (it was the very early days, none of us were particularly inspired in the first few contests) BJSC 4 - Sara Bareilles - Love Song - 1st (this, however, was at least sent several months before it became a hit) And spent the last 169 contests trying to match that!!! Which I did on seven occasions up up to BJSC 64. No further wins in 11 years, but have landed 2nd five times since then (out of 10 in total)!

Groove Coverage for sure, have always loved their take on Poison, it works well as a Eurodance song.

Ed in now at #123.

Love it. This definitely feels too catchy not to take off in a big way. The little instrumental drop after the chorus is superb, the production on this track is super slick and commercial radio are going to eat it up. It's so, so much better than Eyes Closed and anything on Autumn Variations, his best for me since Merry Christmas. Quite intrigued how it will do as I still have my reservations about its appeal to teens who generally drive TikTok and the charts now and who it appears tend to prefer stuff that's a bit more authentic and less 'engineered to be a big hit'. I think it will be a long-running hit and do very well, how high up it peaks I don't know. No.2 debut behind Ordinary perhaps, as sales are low behind No.1, and then lingering and could certainly grow bigger than that in the coming weeks.

Quite strange that Ed hasn’t entered so far.

I would say that this sound didn't really get going in Eurovision though until Sertab Erener won in 2003, so I don't think Holly was imitating anyone in early 2002 that had come before in Eurovision. Maybe Turkey's 1997 entry Dinle, but it's not alike or within a near enough timeframe for it to be an imitation imo. Looking generally at the south-East Europe Eurovision entries of 1998-2001 (pre Kiss Kiss) doesn't bring up much of a similar sound. But of course, post Turkey's win in 2003 this style was everywhere for years. One could even argue the reverse - that Everyway That I Can did so well in many Western countries because it wasn't a million miles away from Kiss Kiss, which had been a hit a year earlier. In other news, I've just realised I inadvertently sent the songwriter of the Turkish original and Kiss Kiss to BJSC in 2017, Sezen Aksu with Şahane Bir Şey Yaşamak. I had no idea of the link so thanks for this rabbit hole find! That's not a bad group indeed. Kiss Kiss is not something I really ever loved a lot actually (or Holly's career generally tbh, although State of Mind was cool and ahead of its time) but it was a fun track to sing along to. Mwah! Sunglasses At Night I used to listen to quite a bit, very fun version of that. And there are some strong dance songs there from Moby, Cosmic Gate, 4 Strings and Shakedown. Timo Maas sounds pretty good too, didn't remember that from the time. No More Drama seems to have become a bit of a classic single from Mary J, but then that whole album was a great era for her. Back When is quite a pleasant allSTARS single but they never really caught on in the charts, despite having a couple of hits at the start that deserved far better. My sister bought their album (and we watched their STARstreet show together) so I remember all of their songs pretty well. I think I'd have released Love Is instead of this double a-side, which could have been a top 15 hit at least.

Kelly gets my vote, with her ridiculously camp video. Her delivery of 'I've been around the block enough to know' really made me laugh for some reason. From these two though, Martine.

Agreed, Grace's song is so good musically and lyrically, love that. She's strung together so many strong singles in a row now. Grace Davies – MDE (genius, again, I wish this kind of pop was fashionable/in the charts) Ariana Grande – twilight zone (another dreamy lovely electro-pop single from Ariana) Sophie Ellis-Bextor – Relentless Love (this is decent - nice production and vocal, probably not a classic melody though) Kesha feat. T-Pain – YIPPEE-KI-YAY. (this is pretty fun) d4vd – What Are You Waiting For (it's ok...nothing more to say on this) Keri Hilson – Bae (was hoping for something a little stronger from Ms. Keri on her return) Mae Stephens – Woah Man! (sounds a bit like a limp filler from 2017) Limahl – A Horse With No Name (skip, sorry, I like the original a lot)

Love Kluminican Republic and New Lexico too, very funny. And D'yer'maker (could be Jamaica or do you make her? ha). Fljótavík is the most beautiful looking name for me, and Mdiče back in the day.

I voted Cascada, sorry everyone! I love that Natalie got a wannabe RedOne production, called in a rent-a-rapper and still managed a song I consider extremely catchy. I never expected them to bounce back in their third era with a No.1, it isn’t the common dance act trajectory. Definitely wouldn’t call Man in the Mirror a big MJ favourite of mine on the other hand but it’s nice it got its chance to shine after it peaked quite low back in the day. Obviously he did deserve a posthumous No.1 of some sort, at least his album was although it blocked Lungs for ages.

Faithless/Dido is definitely the joint best track of the group before last. I actually thought this track would go to No.1, or No.2 at worst, as the first new material to feature Dido after the huge No Angel, I was a bit mystified when it came in at No.6 and then left the top 75 altogether after three weeks. Anyway, a better chart run thankfully for the excellent Lazy, and in fact I remember being surprised that that went in as high as No.2, I'd missed the hype around it pre-release, but it was a great, unusual hit to get so high, and now a classic. I liked Infected quite a lot at the time, although it wasn't as good as On The Move. Weirdly it's labelled wrong on Spotify, this song listed as Infected on there is actually On The Move. Not too much else of interest that week. Usher with another 'U' track, but this one wasn't much good. And Lisa Scott Lee's brothers song was pretty lightweight crap. Last Dreamer is right, 3SL stood for Three Scott-Lees. Which is ridiculously corny, but true. It quite likely also had the double meaning of Three Single Lads, but I remember the Scott-Lee angle is how they were marketed at the time. The second larger group is full of good stuff. Doves were on top form this era, this is a great single that was on sale only for a limited time iirc, hence the very high debut. The next single was amazing too. A great, very inspired return for Sugababes, one of *NSync's best singles (and a template for what Justin's solo material was about to sound like), another lovely single from Kosheen, and a not bad track from Oasis, better than their last couple of lead singles anyway. I very nearly put Bodies by Drowning Pool on Buzzjack Presents 2002, on account of it having nearly 600m streams, but despite that I wouldn't say it's super well known in the UK still, a very anthemic rock track though. I agree with the review of One Step Closer - it's a catchy pop song, although at the time I found the concept of a replacement S Club for younger kids a bit jarring, as well as what they were singing about, which I think stopped me ever truly enjoying this. They were probably the first chart act who were younger than me at this time, which felt very unusual. Let's Push Things Forward is decent, although there were certainly better singles on that album. LFO were always naff but I agree that their first album material was far better than this song, which was like a teen-pop version of Sugar Ray. Wheels On The Bus was conceptually brilliant, quite honestly. To get somebody who sounds exactly like Madonna, to sing this nursery rhyme over basically the exact backing track, was ridiculous but funny and I love that it went top 20 here. It happily is on Spotify, although under the artist name Mother Goose Rocks for some reason. Also, the Top of the Pops performance was...something that happened. There was something in the water that year, with Mad Donna, Mad'House, the Kelly Osbourne cover of Papa Don't Preach, Madonna's own Bond theme...

Although PSB was a 90s cover so couldn't feature in this forum, but I agree that it's genius. Bellefire is also fantastic, agreed. Anyway, it's Mary J here, the Journey South track is absolutely woeful.